Lake County School Board members said Monday they want to support a resolution aimed at getting Florida to examine and revise its accountability system. The resolution, supported by the Florida School Boards Association, calls for the state to review its accountability system and to stop using test results as a primary basis for evaluating teacher and district performance. Board members criticized the state for putting such an emphasis on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and a huge testing burden on school staff. “The FCAT is a good idea but they’ve gone too far with how much, how long, and it’s not working for our schools,” said Board Member Tod Howard. The board Lake will take a final vote on the resolution July 9.

The school board voted unanimously to accept the Florida School Boards Association’s resolution on high stakes testing.

The resolution calls for state officials and school boards to reexamine public school accountability and to put less emphasis on state standardized tests. At the last meeting the board discussed writing its own resolution.

Board members said the new Florida School Board Association resolution supports their concerns.

“This is reflective of the real issues involved and focuses on what’s best for our students,” Scott said.

The resolution encourages the governor, the Legislature and State Board of Education to conduct an independent review and evaluation of the accountability system including assessments, to revise the system to include data from more than one assessment, to eliminate using standardized tests as the primary basis for teacher and administrator evaluations, and to ensure that the system is fully funded by the state.

The number of Florida county school boards to make support gestures of some sort is approaching 20.

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About Bob Sikes

A long time ago and a planet far, far away I was an athletic trainer for the New York Mets. I was blessed to be part of the now legendary 1986 World Series Championship. My late father told me that I'd one day be thankful I had that degree in teaching from Florida State University. He was right and I became twice blesses to become a teacher in the late 1990's. After dabbling with writing about the Mets and then politics, I settled on education.